The Kitschomatic Strikes Again
 

In one case I have the figurine and I am trying to get a tree to go with it.
Here is a case with no particular tree, but I need a figurine (I'll find the
right tree). Some people around here liked my exhibit for Jewish Arbor Day. You
know how it is; you do something right & they make you do it again. We have
coming up Syracuse's annual KlezFest. That's short for Klezmer Festival. For
those who haven't run across it, Klezmer music is old-time East European Jewish
bluegrass. It is mainly fiddlin' music, but nowadays a klezmer band usually
contains a fiddle, a clarinet, a bass, & sometimes a separate vocalist. It is
considered one of the ancestors of jazz. It is undergoing a big revival & every
city in the Northeast US has at least one Klezmer band. Like Levy's Rye Bread,
you don't have to be Jewish to enjoy it or play it.
For this year's KlezFest, I was invited to set up a little bonsai display &
information table. I am grooming trees & getting ready, but the Kitschomatic
went off. I am looking for a miniature musician. Of course a 3 piece band would
be nice, but I'll settle for a country fiddler (preferably with a beard & a
hat, something like Tevye). I've looked high & low, but I can't find any. The
local dollhouse store has everything but. eBay has musical monks, a 1920s
gangster, African-American jazz musicians, brass musicians from Africa, and a
very non-Jewish 18th Century fiddling nobleman. The Jewish Web sites have nice
Klezmer figurines that cost more than my most expensive tree. I posted a
message at a miniature site, but got no response. If you know of any musician
figurines I could use at a reasonable price, I would appreciate it.
In the course of my searches, I have run across some interesting 21st Century
mudmen. There is one group called Homies (very small) which represent all the
denizens of a Los Angeles Chicano neighborhood. There is another group, about 6
inches tall, called Reflexions, which are various characters you might find on
the Manhattan or Boston subway, like a poet, a skateboarder, or a rap singer.
But so far, no fiddlers.
Iris,
Central NY, Zone 5a, Sunset Zone 40
"If we see light at the end of the tunnel, It's the light of the oncoming
train."
Robert Lowell (1917-1977)